Medway selectman candidate will focus on Common Core, PARCC, taxes

Wednesday

Apr 30, 2014 at 12:01 AMApr 30, 2014 at 11:02 AM

By Zachary ComeauDaily News Staff

MEDWAY - For the second time in as many years, one selectman candidate will face defeat at annual town elections scheduled for Tuesday, May 20.First-time selectman candidate Steven Lee, 43, of 165 Lovering St., is challenging incumbent Glenn Trindade, the current chairman who's seeking a third term.Lee, a third-generation Medway resident with two young children, said while he has no complaints about how the current board or other town officials have run the town, now might be time for a change."I feel that it's just good to have new faces and new ideas," said the UMass-Amherst graduate.He did say, however, that he would "make sure community preservation funds are spent wisely and responsibly."He said the funds are meant to prevent "sprawl and overdevelopment. And, he'd like to "make sure money spent is doing the most good toward keeping those things in check."Lee, a professional services engineer, said if he were elected he would place more focus on the schools, especially with the controversy surrounding the Common Core State Standards and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers (PARCC) test.The standards, a federal education initiative, detail what students should know in English language arts and mathematics by the end of each grade.The Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will decide in the fall of 2015 whether the PARCC test will replace the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assesment Sysem (MCAS) as the state's main standardized assessment.Lee, who ran for a seat on the school committee last year, lost his bid by less than 50 votes, but said he was motivated to run because of the new standards and proposed assessment system.He said the school district's budget deserves more scrutiny, especially with the new standards and testing handed down by the federal government."I feel that (Common Core and PARCC) represent a loss of local control over curriculum and standards," he said. "We've ceded control to the federal government."Instead of a top-down approach, Lee said education should start at the local level with parents and elected school committees.He added that some on the board have "been in the system for a while" and may not have Common Core and PARCC "on their radar."And, as a parent of two young children in a town with a residential tax base hovering around 90 percent, he said another focus of his would be to attract more businesses to town."It gets pretty expensive if you're on a fixed income to just afford property taxes in Medway," he said.Zachary Comeau can be reached at 508-634-7556 and zcomeau@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @ZComeau_MDN.